Top 10: Rock 'n' Roll Dinosaurs

In the music business, staying-power isn’t just measured by being relevant and vital: It’s about staying in the public eye as long as possible — in anyway possible — and making as big a killing as you can. The following acts have defied decades of changing trends and styles, substance abuse, dubious artistic choices, deaths in the family, and near fatal palm tree incidents. Nevertheless, they’re still lumbering across our airwaves, our TV screens and our collective consciousness.

Number 10

Ted Nugent

Secret to survival: High volume, big mouth and small arms.

Natural predators: Creeping irrelevance and democrats.

In the late ‘70s Ted Nugent was the top-grossing touring act in the world for three years and he has toured every year since 1968. Love him or hate him, he brings the same wild-eyed, crazy-ass energy that made “Cat Scratch Fever” and “Stranglehold” huge, to everything he does.

A lifetime member and sitting director on the board of the NRA, he’s also a radio host, a Michigan sheriff’s deputy and the author of several books, including God, Guns and Rock-N-Roll and Kill It And Grill It. Pro-gun, pro-right and vehemently anti-drug and anti-alcohol, Nugent breaks the mold of your average rocker when it comes to excess, but not when it comes to self-promotion.

Since 2003, Ted has unleashed a series of TV shows, including Surviving Nugent, Spirit Of The Wild, which won the coveted Golden Moose Award for best hunting show, and Wanted: Ted Or Alive. In 2006, he teamed up with Sebastian Bach, Scott Ian, Evan Seinfeld, and Jason Bonham to form Damnocracy on VH1’s Supergroup.

Status: Splitting his time equally between touring and shooting things.

Number 9

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Secret to survival: Liberal applications of denial, perseverance, and sheer and bloody determination.

What can you say? After making five albums, the band lost three members in a 1977 plane crash, including lead singer and songwriter Ronnie Van Zant — and they’ve been going strong ever since.

Most people would’ve packed it in right then. If not then, then maybe after guitarist Allen Collins died from pneumonia, which was the result of earlier injuries — or when Ed King retired in ’95 with congestive heart failure — or when bassist Leon Wilkeson died in 2001. Does anyone see a pattern here?

According to Skynyrd’s website, it was a stroke of bad luck that brought the band together: While watching a baseball game with guitarist Gary Rossington, drummer Bob Burns was knocked unconscious, courtesy of a line-drive hit by Ronnie. The three became fast friends and formed a band. Burns left the band in 1975 for undefined health reasons. Johnny Van Zant has fronted the band since his brother’s death.

Status: Skynyrd is going strong with summer festivals, corporate gigs and casino shows, which run through 2007.